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All in a Day's Work: Flying into Hurricanes

Maj. Christopher Dyke, USA alumnus and an aerial weather reconnaissance officer for
the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron "Hurricane Hunters,” reviews weather data
collected during a storm flight. The Hurricane Hunters fall under command of the 403rd
Wing at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Air Force/Maj.
Marnee A.C. Losurdo

#SouthSuccessStories is an ongoing series featuring University of South Alabama alumni
who are life-savers, innovators, game-changers, music-makers and creative-thinkers,
successful in their careers and supportive of their communities.

Chris Dyke is a Hurricane Hunter. You hear about them every hurricane season. When
there’s something cooking in the tropics — such as this week with Hurricane Michael
— the Hurricane Hunters fly out to meet the tropical cyclone, face-to-face.

“Just as each tropical cyclone has its own name, it also has its own personality.
I’ve flown through some storms and had a relatively smooth flight and I’ve flown through
others that have certainly been pretty rough rides,” said Dyke, who graduated from
the University of South Alabama in 2005 with a degree in meteorology and serves as an aerial reconnaissance weather officer out of Keesler Air Force Base
in Mississippi, where he is a major with the 403rd Wing.

“For a typical storm, as we get closer to the center we observe wind speeds (both
at flight level and the surface) gradually increase until we reach the eye wall.”

It’s at this point that’s it’s a good idea to make sure your seat belt is securely
fastened.

“I’ve actually been lifted off my seat many times during eyewall penetrations,” Dyke
said. “On our trip inbound we will traverse through bands of thunderstorms and clear
areas that allow us to see the ocean surface. If there is turbulence, we will experience
it at its peak in the eyewall, where we can experience it up to severe levels.”

“I’ve actually been lifted off my seat many times during eyewall penetrations.”

You’ve heard about the calm before the storm. This is the storm before the calm.

“Once we break through into the eye, the ride gets extremely smooth and if it’s a
well-developed system, as the case was this year with Florence, we will see what’s
referred to as a ‘stadium effect’ in which clouds will surround us as if we were in
a large stadium. We will most likely have clear enough visibility to see both blue
sky above and blue water below.”

The tranquility doesn’t last, however. Once Dyke and the crew find the cyclone’s center,
they head right back into the eyewall, and repeat the pattern for approximately six
hours on each mission flown. That’s six hours of stomach-churning, seat-lifting flying
that’s critical to accurate hurricane forecasting.

“In our post-mission processing of data and problem solving, we work with a variety
of professionals throughout the meteorological community to tweak our equipment and
techniques to get as much value out of the data from the flights as we can get,” Dyke
said. “Each time we go into the storm, the ARWO (Aerial Reconnaissance Weather Officer),
as the mission director, must clearly communicate to the rest of the crew and to the
National Hurricane Center what they are looking for and seeing. As each flight throws
some curveballs, the ARWO also has to be able to figure out what is going on in order
to achieve the objective they were sent to accomplish.”

For Dyke, his career objective brought him to South from Tate High School in nearby
Cantonment, Fla. He actually was accepted to attend an in-state university noted for
its meteorology program, but USA offered something more than a reputation.

“What attracted me to South was the smaller class sizes providing more individualized
instruction and the meteorology program’s focus on not just the mathematics and research
aspects of the field, but also the focus on operational meteorology and teaching students
how to forecast,” Dyke said, who discovered that he was ahead of his peers when he
joined the Air Force.

“The link that South’s curriculum makes between research and operational meteorology
was vital in my early success in the Air Force. It gave me a solid foundation that
allowed me to focus on learning and refining new skills. While many of my peers were
just beginning to apply principles they learned in the classroom, I was teaching others
how to apply them.”

“The link that South’s curriculum makes between research and operational meteorology
was vital in my early success in the Air Force.”

Of course, those meteorological skills are applicable to more than just tropical cyclones.
And that’s handy, because Dyke and his Hurricane Hunters do more than just hunt for
hurricanes.

“At the end of hurricane season, we transition to supporting the National Winter Storm
Operations Plan,” Dyke said. “Our support for this includes the ability to fly in
advance of storms along the East Coast, Gulf Coast and West Coast that could pose
a threat for significant winter weather to U.S. interests. We will also work with
other governmental agencies in conducting research and other weather operations along
with traditional C-130 missions of airlift and aeromedical support.” And that’s not
all.

“In the spring we work with the Department of State to improve international relations
with countries in Central and South America that are hurricane prone, through the
Caribbean Hurricane Awareness Tour and then we’re right back into hurricane season,”
Dyke said.

With family and friends nearby, Dyke acknowledges a heightened sense of responsibility
for the work he’s doing to protect all of us from the dangers of tropical systems
and other severe storms.

“Growing up on the coast and being impacted by hurricanes, I certainly have an appreciation
for the significance of the work we do as well as the storms that approach,” he said.
“This does lead to a heightened sense of responsibility, empathy and sympathy for
what is unfolding.”